Für Elise
by paradiso
Summary: Stella falls asleep in Mac's jacket. Lindsay's door locks on its own. Stella/Lindsay Friendship. Rated for language.


A/N: _Thank you to all who have reviewed my stories so far. It is greatly appreciated._

**Für Elise**

It was the most common, high-pitched, ugly thing that Stella had ever heard. But it had been six months since she last changed her ringtone, and she thought it was unfair to change it just _yet_. She had always been oddly sympathetic about such things. The dented soup can at the supermarket that no one buys, the gravel-flavored coffee that most people would rather die than drink, that 1st grade detective who has to sit and sign paperwork after hours. She has always had a place in her heart for these things. The irritating poly tone screaming at her through a pillow is no different.

She groped beneath the quilt looking for her phone, desperate to hit the power switch (or throw it against a wall) and get back to sleep. When Beethoven's ruined song finally woke her up enough for her to gather her wits and actually listen to it, she felt beneath her pillow (a couch cushion, really) and grasped the tiny device.

It's her old phone, the one that she's had since she moved into this apartment, millennia ago it seems. The screen is scratched, and she can count the number of pixels without going into the hundreds. It's also her personal phone, the one that she keeps because she can pretend to have a social life if she has a phone bill that's _not_ paid for by the government. Of course, she could talk forever with all the minutes she hasn't used, but she finds that these days, she doesn't like to do much talking at all.

That explained why the phone was under her pillow that morning at ten after midnight, an early night for once. In addition to this, Stella came to the startling conclusion that the reason why she had a crick in her neck was because of that very phone (more like a tired artifact, in the year 2008) being under her head for that last two hours. This alarmed her to the point of depression. She was angry at the phone for being under her pillow, she was angry about it waking her up, and thus when she finally answered it (after it had gone silent and then started up again three times) she was not in the happiest of moods.

Oddly enough, the person on the other end wasn't feeling very peachy either.

"Stella."

"What do you want?"

"_Stella_," a sniffle.

Silence.

"Lind... say?" Stella sat up, the crick in her neck shot down her spine.

It might have very well been Lindsay. Or Danny. Or Xena, warrior princess. Stella couldn't be sure, since a sharp cry rose from her throat when she tried to stretch, and it drowned out the response. The silence on the other end for a few minutes however, confirmed that it was indeed one of her colleagues who had decided to disturb her so early in the morning. Only they would have known to give her a few minutes to recover from the pain, and then chastise herself from passing out on the couch again after work.

And then there was a sniffle from before, and suddenly Stella knew exactly who the shaky voice belonged to. Her earlier suspicion had been correct, but then, she was careful when she gave out her personal number, and the boys were probably careful not to call it.

"Good morning Lindsay," Stella said, but then there was no reply and she became alert immediately, "Lindsay what's wrong? What's happening?"

A deep breath and then, "I'm locked out Stella. My piece is inside I'm..."

She didn't have to finish. Stella understood, it was late, and Lindsay was a country mouse in this big city (though Stella would have never said that to her face) and well... no matter what Lindsay admitted to now, it would all come down to Stella at her door in one in the morning. It would have been 12:30, until Stella heard her say:

"Charolais and Eighth Line. Right on the corner next to the pet shop. Apartment 622."

"I'll be right there."

"Okay... I-" Lindsay cut herself off before she could go off on a spiel about how creepy the hallway was, or how she kept hearing these weird noises and how she was sitting right next to a fire extinguisher.

--

Stella kept the phone in her pocket, just in case, for the thirty-minute drive to Lindsay's. The doorman didn't look very convincing to her. He probably just figured that here was this half-asleep, probably drunken thirty-five-year-old, coming home from a night out pretending to be twenty-one again, stumbling into her apartment at one o' clock a.m. She could have knocked him out with the flick of her wrist, and she almost felt like telling him so when he arched an eyebrow at her.

Instead, she walked on by, straight to the elevators, and immediately she saw just why this didn't look like it would be a fun place to hang out if she ever happened to be wasted and half-asleep, coming home from a wild night on the town. She tucked that piece of information, along with a loose curl, in the space behind her ear and stepped into the rickety elevator.

_Jeez_, she thought as she tried to recall Lindsay's apartment number, _There's even a thirteenth floor_.

She was about the slump against the wall, when she suddenly thought better of it, wondering if the whole thing would collapse on her head if she did so. The place looked like it hadn't seen a quick check-up in years.

Lindsay's head snapped up the second she heard the sound of the elevator door (the sound was loud enough to drown out the telltale bell that was supposed to ring). Unfortunately, while in the process of whipping her head around to decide if her next action was a violent one, or a sigh of utter relief, she knocked herself against the wall.

The pain went unnoticed. She was too busy trying to get to her feet.

"Relax, kiddo, it's just me," Stella held up her hands, "You're a mess."

"I'm sorry Stella, to drag you out here at this time... I know, I have to right to and..." Lindsay frowned and then shook her head violently, "Listen, I understand completely if you just want to leave and go back to bed. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

"Well I'm here, aren't I?" but then she regretted those words.

"Oh! Oh of course you are, that was stupid of me I didn't-"

"Forget about it Lindsay," Stella tried to walk over to the younger woman without tripping over her own feet.

A meter and a half away, Lindsay looked dejected and confused and most of all sorry for calling out her superior, but she hadn't the slightest idea what to say about it. And for all those apologetic feelings, Stella started feeling sorry as well. Sorry for coming off as insensitive and nonchalant when here was this scared, but brilliant girl who was having just a little trouble putting herself together in the city.

It had been along time since Stella had felt that way, and had gone through the exact same thing at one in the morning – with a certain someone else leaning his head against the wall on the other side of the hallway.

_Well, since I'm supposed to be the empathic one_, she thought to herself and then moved forward to place a hand on Lindsay's shoulder, "We can go back to my place if you want?"

"Can't, I have to be back here for five."

"In the morning?"

"Yes. That's when the super opens up. I left a message on his machine to come and open my door, and if I'm not here by the time he gets here, he won't bother with me again."

"And you know this, how?"

"I heard it through my wall last week. My neighbor's moving tomorrow."

"Oh," Stella tossed her hair around her shoulder, "We could still just go back to my place, I could set the alarm... or we could go to one of those twenty-four hour places for a coffee. Do you have any of those around here?"

Lindsay shook her head, "David Bowie. He's in my apartment."

Inside the apartment, in fact, on the other side of the door, a small furry creature lifted his head at the sound of his name and let out a wail, followed by a symphony of pathetic mewls.

"David Bowie I presume?"

"He gets scared when he's left alone at night. If I leave now, he'll tear up everything I own. Cats you know."

"You've been here three weeks, you have a cat already?"

"He came with me."

"From Montana?"

"Yes. I love him. You don't have to stay if you don't want to," another meow, "Alright Davy, I'm right here sweetheart."

"So is ground control. Hope you don't mind," Stella added without a hint of humor in her voice, but Lindsay laughed anyways.

"I guess it sounds silly, but he's my world," said Lindsay.

But it didn't sound silly at all to Stella. In fact, it made a lot of sense to her. She wondered about cats, and if she could maybe get one, casually forget to get it fixed, and then maybe she'd have some little kitties to play with when she got home from work... and then maybe she'd get some more... and then...

"I don't like cats," said Stella crossly, but mostly to herself.

"Uh... okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

She really was.

--

Lindsay was trying hard not to fall asleep – and failing for the most part. Across from her, Stella had her head back against the wall, cushioned by the abundance of her hair (she'd have to make sure to wash it thoroughly the next morning). While in a semi-asleep state, Stella found herself walking through a tunnel that was brighter than the hallway, reaching out and trying to touch the walls to see if they were really there. She tried next for the floor, but again, nothing. She frowned to herself, wondering what on _earth_ she was standing on, if it was some remarkable substance made entirely of particles of air, yet able to support her weight.

It was a dream, so she believed it. She leaned forward at the end of the tunnel, and as she did so, a harsh wind stormed past, pushing her, throwing her off-balance. Stella fell gratefully from the tunnel, her arms stretched wide, embracing the fall...

"Hey, are you okay?" Lindsay.

"Huh?" Stella opened her eyes with a start.

"You jumped a little."

"I was falling."

Pause.

"Oh. Did you hit the ground?"

"I hit something."

"Was it nice?"

Stella thought for a moment, "Yes, I think. The fall was quite nice."

Lindsay smiled a tired, but sincere, smile, one that few people were capable of at three in the morning. Stella decided not to attempt the same gesture, but gave her a little nod. She looked up at the worn number on Lindsay's door and suddenly the most obvious of questions crept into her mind.

"Why the _hell_ do you live here?" she asked, the sound of her own voice startling her, "Wait, let me guess. You _wanted_ to come to New York City, but when you got here, you tried to find the place closest to Montana?"

"This is my home now."

Stella scoffed, "You don't like it here. No one ever does at first."

Lindsay continued to smile, "After all those years I spent being so sure about who I am because of what other people told me, and when I say 'other people' I mean _everyone_ I'd ever known back home, it was kind of nice to come here and not be so sure anymore."

"Not be sure? Not be sure who you are? That's horrible, especially if you once knew."

"I thought I once knew. And maybe I didn't like that person, and maybe I did, but regardless, it was never my decision to be her... with people nitpicking at you all the time, you sort of change to suit them. It's the only way to get them to shut up. There's so many people in this city, it impossible for them all to care. No one cares really. It's great."

Stella felt overwhelmed by Lindsay's sudden profound speech. Not only that, but it filled the older woman up with a variety of emotions – some that she had no names for. She decided to do what she always did when she was backed into a corner and expected to deliver some epic one-liner to bring it home. Curse.

"How the fuck did you get locked out of your own apartment?"

Lindsay was stunned, she looked up in surprise at Stella. In the three weeks that she'd known Mac's second-in-command, Lindsay had never heard her raise her utter anything inappropriate to one of her colleagues. At first, she thought she'd done something terribly wrong (worse than waking up her co-worker at midnight to come keep her company) to elicit such foul language from Stella, and she prepared herself immediately to lunge out of the way should Stella begin to grow increasingly impatient with her silence.

But then the sentence began to resound helpfully within her ears and Lindsay realized that Stella hadn't sounded angry at all. Their eyes met, an innocent brown on a more experienced blue-green and Lindsay took the opportunity to study Stella's face. She was not angry.

"The lock is broken," Lindsay explained, "It locks automatically."

Stella nodded and then looked up at the water-stained ceiling. If the person upstairs decided to take a couple a bubble baths before morning, Stella wondered if she would get out of the place without finding any plaster in her hair.

"Hey Lindsay, let's find you a new place this weekend."

"That's sounds great, Stella."

--

"Isn't that Mac's coat?" Lindsay said out loud before she could think to stop herself.

Stella looked down and was immediately embarrassed. She tried to wrap the jacket around tighter, which was what she usually did when she was nervous, but then she realized that that only made her look even more incriminating.

"He gave it to me," said Stella shakily.

"Mac Taylor _gave_ you his jacket?" Lindsay's eyes were wide with disbelief.

"I was cold, okay?"

"... so he gave you his jacket."

"Yes."

"You were cold and... he gave you his jacket."

"_Yes_ Lindsay. That is what happened."

"Are you guys, like, dating?" Lindsay's eyes were the size of saucers, as opposed to Stella, whose pupils had narrowed significantly.

"No, we are just friends. Barely friends really, especially now that you're here, and we have one more person to handle cases. In fact, Mac and I will hardly see each other at all from now on, so there's really no time to kindle a friendship, or anything more than that. Not that we would even think about doing anything like that."

Lindsay smirked and Stella gasped. The girl had a hint of something in her eyes that Stella wasn't entirely sure she wanted to become acquainted with, for fear of her dignity being hurt.

"You're _so_ cute," Lindsay squealed unexpectedly.

"Oh, just... just stop."

"No really. And that jacket looks fabulous on you."

"Gee thanks. It must really accent my masculine figure huh?"

"That isn't what I meant. Hey, since you and Mac barely work together anymore maybe you could-"

"No Lindsay. No."

"But-"

"Lindsay, I'm still your supervisor you know."

"It's okay, I'm willing to risk it."

"_Lindsay_."

A giggle. Stella thought she might scream, but instead, a curious bout of laughter tickled her throat and she had to bite down on her lip to keep herself from smiling. Lindsay's eyes smiled, sparkling even in the dim light of the hallway. As she held back her laughter, Stella realized how warm the jacket really was, and for the first time that evening, she could feel the floor beneath her, and the wall against her back. She was grounded. She felt real.

This was it, Stella decided. She and Lindsay were officially friends. It felt great to have one again, and yet a little ironic. Here was Lindsay, completely new to the city and its thrills and dangers, and then Stella who'd been here for as long as she could remember and yet she _still_ had trouble being grounded.

Finally, she could hold back no longer. A pristine, previously dormant sound rose from Stella's throat. The laughter pierced the wall between them and travelled down the halls out into the open, shattering the stagnant air and making it clean enough to breathe.

It was so wonderful, Stella let herself forget that the jacket around her shoulders was something like a makeshift parting gift, an affectionate apology from the man she cared for most.

--

"Good morning girls," said Mr. Barry Stein at five a.m. sharp, with an certain gleam in his eye creepy enough to make Stella push that apartment-hunting date up a few days.

"Good morning!" Lindsay smiled brightly enough to blind them all in sharp contrast to Stella's darkening face.

"And who is this lovely lady?" he asked.

Even though the man was addressing Stella, Lindsay turned bright red and glanced apologetically at her friend. Stella nodded briefly at Lindsay before her eyes went wide when she realized that this creep actually expecting an answer.

"This lovely lady is entirely out of your league, dreadfully tired, a little bit hostile, and is entirely willing to kick your ass through that paper-thin wall over there if you try _anything_," her badge gleamed unexpectedly from its place on her belt.

Stella thought that she might have scared him a little too much.

Lindsay thought that Stella might be her idol.

Barry Stein thought that he'd better not try anything. He scurried away quickly without looking back once he'd unlocked the door for them.

"Nice touch," said Stella as she looked around the apartment and spotted an iconic New York tourist t-shirt slung carelessly over the side of a chair.

"Heh, thanks," Lindsay laughed nervously and sat down on a cardboard box, "Most of my stuff is still unpacked."

"Well that'll make it easy to get you out of here," she sat down next to her.

"You were right."

"Well that's a relief, I don't know what Major Tom would've done without ground control. Or you, for that matter."

Lindsay hadn't the slightest idea what she was talking about, having forgotten the stale joke. Ironically, she was further confused when David Bowie turned walked right past her into Stella's waiting arms, obviously miffed.

"Are you mad at me?" Lindsay arched an eyebrow at the feline, "Fine. Be that way. You don't really hate cats do you Stella."

"No," she stroked Davy's head, "No, I really don't. It's probably a bad thing."

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, David Bowie's low purr filling the room with a certain something that made Stella understood why this dreary apartment may have been almost bearable for Lindsay, though she still had every intention of finding her something a little more... homey. Finally, Lindsay remember what exactly she had to say about Stella being right.

"I meant, I don't really like it here _too_ much. It's exciting and all, being in a city that never sleeps or whatever. But it's hard. I've never been away from home. And even though it was suffocating and frustrating and downright miserable at times, at least it was familiar. At least I knew people by name. I just wish their opinions hadn't mattered so much..." she sighed and touched Davy's ear. He crawled into her lap and curled into her stomach to sleep.

"It happens to everyone Lindsay. This place is huge... I don't think there's a single person I know who hasn't ever been scared by it. Even the people who grow up here sometimes it's hard. And it's just unnatural for you to be surrounded so many things, and it would be equally unnatural for you to not be affected by any of it."

"But it gets better right."

"Yes, it does. Trust me."

"I do."

--

"Way to be cliché, Stella," said Lindsay at seven o' clock as they drove back into civilization and the Für Elise sounded.

"Watch it," Stella looked at the phone, and her previous theory about the cautious men with whom she worked with (or worked _for_ in this instance) went out the window, "Hello?"

"Stella, where are you?" came the reply.

"Uh..." she looked to Lindsay, who had offered to drive the car that morning back to Stella's apartment, "I'm with a friend."

"Oh..."

"Listen Mac-"

"No, I'm sorry to interrupt"

"_Mac_, it's okay, I'm on my way now. I'll be there in five minutes," she didn't have to ask where he was, she knew that he'd panicked when he knocked on her door that morning at six with Irish coffee in his hands.

It was probably cold by now, but she found herself to be growing more and more excited as the car drove on.

"Are you sure."

"Yes."

"See you later then."

"Bye."

Click.

She turned to Lindsay, "Not _one_ word."

Their smiles matched the sunrise.

--

"You can just take it to the lab," said Stella to Lindsay as she hopped out of the car, "Mac'll give me a ride."

She regretted that statement.

"You know Lindsay," Stella muttered as the other girl erupted into a symphony of laughter, "You have one _very_ dirty mind."

"You should try it some time."

"Just go."

Lindsay winked, a foretelling of what kind of hell was to come during their evening out together that day after work. Then she drove off and Stella thought she had never been happier to have a personal cell phone.

Mac was waiting for her by her door, and not the other way around for once. It felt natural.

"Hi," she smiled prettily.

"Hi," he managed a smile as well, "Your coffee."

"Come in, we can heat it up."

She fumbled with her pocket for a second, and then nearly flew into a panic when she couldn't find her key.

"There's a hole in that one," Mac smiled again.

Stella arched and eyebrow and then felt her side again until she finally found the irregular metal object. She handled the jacket briefly in order to push it through the hole in the pocket.

"So, the strangest thing happened last night," said Stella as she keyed the buttons on the microwave.

"What was that?"

"I fell in love with theFür Elise."

"There's a theory about that song. It was supposedly meant for a certain _Therese_."

"No," said Stella and she smiled to herself as they grabbed the coffee and traveled downstairs, out of the apartment and into the morning light, "This song was meant for me."

**--**

There was two-hundred and sixty four days left in the year that Stella and Lindsay sat together outside of the latter's apartment, speaking of many things. In that time, Stella developed a new fondness for sleepovers, Irish coffee, and New York city all together while Lindsay discovered that her new best friend wasn't really the same person who pretended to hate cats and spoke only of the most professional things (to her knowledge) while in the company of Mac Taylor.

She smiled to herself one night as Lindsay chattered on and on about fake Christmas trees and how there was _none _of that in Montana.

_Thank you, Beethoven._

**fin.**

_July 2008._


End file.
